Bra straps are bootstrapped

Filed in archive Bootstrapper News on October 5, 2006

Bath Township, Ohio, entrepreneur Shelli Styles has launched a bootstrap business that is improving the lives of her husband's family and a growing community of women in Cali, Colombia.

The women produce colorful beaded bra straps and other products which Styles then sells on her website www.strappity.com and through retailers.

Styles told the Associated Press recently:

"The whole reason that we're doing this is to build the women up, starting in this one little community and to grow that out."

Her website, which markets Styles' products under the brand name Strappity-do-da, offers not only everyday essential, floral and extra long beaded bra straps but convertible bras, beaded toe and finger rings, and a fledgling beaded bracelets page.

Products that appeal to a customers' social conscience certainly have an expanding niche in the marketplace.

(Which would probably help to explain why I routinely walk into a supermarket and plunk down $7 for a bag of Green Mountain Fair Trade & Organic coffee even when there are much cheaper alternatives.)

David Cooperrider, a professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, observed in the above referenced article:

"Customers will invest and make choices based on the positive ecological and human impact that these businesses have."

Such products can also be perfect for a bootstrapping start-up business because their appeal to the socially conscious consumer can help compensate for the unfamiliarity of a new and untried brand or even help define one.

Still, Boston College management professor and visiting Harvard University scholar Sandra Waddock, co-founder of the Leadership for Change Program at Boston College cautioned:

"People want their money to go to something good. But they don't necessarily want to spend a lot of it and some people can't afford to spend a lot."

Translation? Socially conscious or not, a company should always put out a good product at a fair price.

Remember, Green Mountain is also damn good coffee!